Academic friendship in dark times

ABSTRACT

Bringing philosophical work on friendship to bear on the growing body of critique about the state of the neoliberal academy, this paper defends academic friendship. Initially a vignette illustrates the key features of academic friendship and the multiple demands on academics to account for themselves in the neoliberal university. We locate academic friendship in the context of that neoliberal university before discussing managerialist threats to this relationship. We indicate how the performativity-driven working environment contrasts radically and unfavourably with some defining features of friendship. Academic friendship, we argue, can entail generative intellectual and moral activity and growth though trusting and honest reflection on research and scholarship, and teaching and learning. Contending that it may offer an antidote to aspects of the neoliberal academy, in our concluding section academic friendship is highlighted as both a defence and a means of resistance against the worst excesses of the university in dark times.

KEYWORDS:

• Friendship
• neoliberal university
• trust
• academic labour
• moral commitment
• managerialism

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Patricia White and Kirsty Alexander, whose work prompted their interest in aspects of the concept of friendship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. ‘Outputs’ refer to the UK’s REF (Research Excellence Framework), a peer review process with three elements, one of which is ‘outputs’ – publications, performances and exhibitions, see http://www.ref.ac.uk/about/whatref/.

2. SMART objectives are, often, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound but different universities use modified forms (e.g. strategic not specific).

3. The UK’s Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) drawing on HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) data for 2014/15, notes ‘at least 53% of all academics employed in the sector are on some form of insecure contract’ with many staff ‘employed as “workers”, paid by the assignment, on lower pay rates and with fewer employment rights’ at https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/8384/Precarious-work-in-higher-education-November-2016-update/pdf/ucu_precariouscontracts_hereport_nov16_.pdf) . See https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/7995/Precarious-work-in-higher-education-a-snapshot-of-insecure-contracts-and-institutional-attitudes-Apr-16/pdf/ucu_precariouscontract_hereport_apr16.pdf for current data.

4. These are all listed by various UK universities. A search for ‘university values’ reveals a plethora of such terms.

5. While we share Bennett’s criticism of competitive individualism, we would wish to distinguish between the self-interest of such ethical egoism and ethical individualism as a defence of the individual as the primary unit of moral attention.

6. But also see Bacon (2014) for neo-collegiality.

7. For example the UK’s National Student Survey (NSS) at https://www.thestudentsurvey.com/about.php and Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) at https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/teaching/what-is-the-tef/.

8. Of course we acknowledge the ‘dark side of friendship’ (Fehr 1996:179) for both friends and others and so the need for some regulation, e.g. through codes of conduct on workplace relations, to head off workplace romances and sexual liaisons that, misaligned with power, might undermine the moral rectitude of the institution and cause individual harm.

9. While collegiality might be understood as ‘a structured form of collaborative decision-making’ and, often, as ‘a mode of behaviour, having in mind relations between colleagues which are mutually supportive, geared to the good of the collective over the individual and not fixated on rank’ (Bacon 2014:3), our argument is that academic friendship is not geared to the good of the collective although, of course, it may yield such a dividend.

10. Friedman was writing here of friendship amongst women but we are extending her disruptive possibilities to academic friendships.

11. We note Kram (1983:620) includes friendship as one of mentoring’s psychosocial functions although she notes that will likely develop over time particularly during the ‘redefinition phase’ when ‘the relationship becomes, primarily, a friendship’.